Oracle cold backup

Question

Currently Database is running on No-Archive Log mode. Can i Take only all datafiles (*.dbf) backup i.e. Excluding REDO and Control Files.

Also please let me know steps to restore the *.dbf file back in location.

Answer 1

You also need the control files and red log files. To restore, shutdown the database and copy the files back to their original locations. Then start the database.

Not recommended practice for a production environment. But I do this a lot with a test environment where I keep different version of the same database as cold backup sets.

Answer 2

If you want this database to be opened with simple startup command then you need redo and control files, since they are parts of the database.

However, if you don't have redo and control files in your cold backup then you will have to create control file with the script, usually generated with alter database backup controlfile to trace; and open the database with alter database open resetlogs - this command will create new redo logs.

Actually, you can open the database without the redo logs with alter database open resetlogs if this is a cold copy. The cold copy does not require recovery:

SQL> recover database until cancel using backup controlfile;
ORA-00279: change 6846169 generated at 01/20/2016 16:00:29 needed for thread 1
ORA-00289: suggestion : +DATA
ORA-00280: change 6846169 for thread 1 is in sequence #521


Specify log: {<RET>=suggested | filename | AUTO | CANCEL}
cancel
Media recovery cancelled.
SQL> alter database open resetlogs;

Database altered.

So no, you don't need redo logs with cold backups. The only requirement fot that is that the database have to be shutdown with immediate, not abort. So it would be consistent.